Statement by  Frank Fuentes
Acting Deputy Commisioner
Office of Child Support Enforcement
Administration for Children and Families
Department of Health and Human Services
Before the
Subcommittee on Human Resources
Committee on Ways and Means
U.S. House of Representatives
 June 28, 2001

Mr. Chairman and distinguished members of the Subcommittee, thank you for giving me the opportunity to submit testimony for the record on the Child Support Enforcement program. I am Frank Fuentes, the Acting Commissioner of the Office of Child Support Enforcement. The Child Support Enforcement program is a very successful Federal/State partnership effort aimed at fostering family responsibility and promoting self-sufficiency by encouraging that both parents support children financially and emotionally.

To accomplish this goal, we work in partnership with States in providing four major services: locating non-custodial parents, establishing paternity, establishing child support obligations, and enforcing child support orders. Welfare reform made dramatic improvements in our ability to achieve these goals and I would like to take this opportunity to share with you the promising results we are witnessing. I would also like to share some of the activities the Administration is undertaking to strengthen fatherhood since I know this is of particular interest to the Subcommittee.

Child Support Enforcement Program Record

Through enactment of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA), unprecedented tools have been provided to the child support enforcement program. These tools are already having a dramatic impact in securing for many of our nation's children the emotional and financial support that they need. In FY 2000, a record $17.9 billion in child support was collected. This represents an increase of 50 percent since FY 1996. We now are collecting support on behalf of almost 68 percent of the caseload where an order has been established.

PRWORA provided tough child support enforcement techniques and new automated collection methods. For example, the law expanded wage garnishment, authorized States to suspend or revoke driver and professional licenses for parents who are delinquent, and provided for passport denial for parents who were at least $5,000 delinquent in support.

In addition, the law established a Federal Case Registry and National Directory of New Hires to track delinquent parents across State lines. It also required that employers report all new hires to State agencies for transmittal to the national directory and to match records with financial institutions so that States may place a lien on the accounts of delinquent parents.

Using the expanded Federal Parent Locator Service we were able to provide States information on three million interstate cases, and using the Passport Denial Program, we have collected over $7 million in lump sum child support payments in the last year. To date, more than 4,200 financial institutions have agreed to participate in data matching for child support and nearly 700,000 individuals delinquent in their child support have been matched with their accounts. The value of those accounts is nearly $2.5 billion. Further, the Federal Tax Refund and Administrative Offset programs collected about $1.4 billion in calendar year 2000.

The record is similar with respect to paternity establishment. The number of paternities established or acknowledged reached a record of 1.6 million in FY 2000. This represents an increase of 46 percent since FY 1996. Of these, over 688,000 paternities were established through in-hospital acknowledgement programs. An additional 867,000 paternities were established through the Child Support Enforcement program. In addition to being the first step in collecting child support, paternity establishment engages fathers in the lives of their children, creating the emotional bonds and security that are crucial to their children's health and well being.

PRWORA streamlined the legal process for paternity establishment, making the process easier and faster. It also expanded the voluntary in-hospital process for paternity establishment started in 1993 and required a State affidavit for voluntary paternity acknowledgment. In addition, the law mandated that States publicize the availability and encourage the use of the voluntary paternity establishment process.

We are excited about the dramatic results these changes are generating and are convinced that the future of child support enforcement will continue on this successful path. Critical to these efforts, though, is a new and determined focus on the fathers.

Strengthening Fatherhood

I would like to turn to the Administration’s efforts to strengthen fatherhood – what we view as a critical complement to our enforcement efforts if we are to succeed in accomplishing our basic mission of increasing both financial and emotional support for our nation’s children.

The Office of Child Support Enforcement has worked to strengthen the role of fathers in families. For example, we have funded eight child support enforcement responsible fatherhood demonstration projects that will help bolster fathers' financial and emotional involvement with their children. Each project is different, although they all provide a range of services to aid in collecting child support, such as job training, access and visitation, and social services.

The Office of Child Support Enforcement has provided over $1.5 million to the National Center for Strategic Nonprofit Planning and Community Leadership (NPCL) to work with grassroots fathers’ organizations to help unemployed and underemployed fathers become responsible parents. In addition, we have approved ten State waivers supporting the Partners for Fragile Families, a set of projects to test ways for child support enforcement programs and community and faith-based organizations to work together to improve the opportunities of young, unmarried fathers to support their children both financially and emotionally. Further, PRWORA created a $10 million access and visitation program for States, serving more than 22,000 individuals in 1997 and an estimated 50,000 in 1998.

Most recently, President Bush and Secretary Thompson’s clear commitment to promoting involved, committed and responsible fatherhood as a national priority was emphasized in the FY 2002 budget request. One of the many goals of the Administration's FY 2002 proposal is to provide $64 million for the first year to support low-income families by helping low-income non-custodial parents (mainly fathers) support their children by paying child support and connecting or reconnecting with their children.

This initiative shares many of the same goals as the fatherhood legislation supported by this Subcommittee. We commend Representatives Johnson and Cardin and the Subcommittee for your leadership in focusing attention on responsible fatherhood and we look forward to working with you on this critical area of mutual commitment. As the President recently said at the Fourth National Summit on Fatherhood, "For our children, and for our nation, nothing is more important than the national fatherhood initiative."

Conclusion

In closing, let me say that it is only through our partnership with the Congress and the States that we have been so successful in strengthening the Child Support Enforcement program. The many new tools provided by the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act are helping to improve the lives of our nation's children. We can improve on existing efforts by focusing more attention on strengthening our commitment to fatherhood, and we look forward to working with you on this important legislation.

Thank you. I would be pleased to answer your questions for the record.